Art

A Cultural Pursuit

Saturday. I don't work on Saturdays. Last year I did and the decision making was so much simpler: What shall I do this Saturday? Teach English. Now I'm cursed with this free time in the middle of the Korean winter which the Canadians assure me isn't really cold. Sod them! If it's below freezing, it's cold. If it's cold it means it's uncomfortable to do anything outside. So, faced with another weekend of channel surfing and reading, I decided to be proactive and headed to the Daejeon Municipal Museum of Art.

The art museum is located in the shadow of the Government Buildings, or would be if the sun set in the south. It's also close to the pyramid that was stolen from the 'Stargate' movie set. You'll know it's an Art Gallery because its roof is artistically upside down. But you do need to do a little thinking, because it's actually the smaller of the two buildings with upside down roofs.

The Art Museum

Now I wouldn't quite call myself a student of Art or even a frequenter of galleries. I do have a favourite kind of Art though. I love those old pictures in ornate frames, where the paint is both full of colour and full of cracks. They look beautiful, but (perhaps more importantly) they also looks about a thousand years old. The closer to a photograph it looks, the more I like it. There wasn't a single picture like that in the whole Daejeon Municipal Museum of Art.

The first thing that meets the eye when entering the museum is a huge stack of TV screen flashing garish images so rapidly it's impossible to see exactly what each one is. The TV sets are arranged like a ship with wings. This is what they call Modern Art. The Fractal Turtle Ship welcomes you to the museum in its modern, electrically powered, neon lit, maximalistic, Korean way.

The Fractal Turtle Ship

The museum is divided into five galleries, though finding the fifth one is a bit of a challenge (down the tiny staircase into the depths of the building), and they were all full of art by artists who aren't even dead yet. There were painting, drawing, wooden and metal statues, videos and even computer animations. All very artistic I'm sure, but I only found two pictures in the whole place that I actually liked. When I had checked out all the galleries I headed to the restaurant and did some eating for eating's sake, something I definitely am a fan of. The food was artistically bad, though surprisingly priced reasonably.

A Metal Man in a Big Gallery

I'm not saying I didn't enjoy the experience. Like every Art Museum I've been in, this had high ceilings and large well-lit walls sparsely populated with Art. It's a great environment in which to amble, and amble I did. It was almost like going on a walk in the countryside with Art instead of trees, and though modern, the art was certainly more interesting to look at than trees. It took me a little while to understand why I had enjoyed myself so much. There had been hardly any people there. I had managed to get away from the crowds of Daejeon. I guess nothing keeps people away like a display of Modern Art.

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